The Pint of Science Festival returned to Liverpool for a 7th successful year and saw over 550 people attend events over the three days, on topics ranging from ‘Why are you Hungry?’ to ‘Honey I Shrunk the Collider!’
Pint of Science is the world largest festival of public science talks with events taking place in over 25 countries and hundreds of cities around the world.
The University of Liverpool programme continues to expand, and this year over 80 members of staff and students from all Faculties got involved with the Festival through organising events, giving talks about their work or taking part in Shots of Science, where they were challenged to explain their research in just 3 minutes. This year also saw an event from The Pandemic Institute called ‘Mersey Marvels’. Hosted by Professor Tom Solomon, this night showcased why Liverpool is such an exciting place to be for world-leading scientific research.
The 2024 Festival also saw another first, with events taking place on the Wirral for the first time. The School of Veterinary Science (SVS) hosted a night in Neston, to share some of the fascinating research taking place there with the local community. John Tulloch, Academic Lead for Public Engagement in IVES said “We want the SVS to be more embedded within the local communities of the Wirral and Pint of Science provides a great opportunity to facilitate this. Amazing research and clinical work was showcased in a fun and humorous way, with fantastic feedback received from the night. It really helped to demystify what occurs ‘behind the hedge on the Chester High Road’!’
Over the three nights of the Festival, 14 different events took place in 6 different pubs including the ‘Science of Vision, Colliders and Crashes’, ‘Engineering in Nature’, ‘Making Memories’ and ‘Poo, Pets and Dangerous Liaisons!’ Some of the feedback from members of the public included: ““Great, fun evening, already looking forward to next year!” “Absolutely fantastic, please do more” and “I am from a non-scientific background, I really enjoyed the talks, it’s pitched just right for me!”
Laura Winters, Public Engagement Officer for the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences said: “Pint of Science is a highlight of our public engagement programme every year. It’s so important to share our work with our local communities, and Pint of Science is a brilliant platform for us to share our research in an informal setting through fun and engaging talks! We’re always so impressed by the quality of the talks our staff and students give, and it’s great that all three Faculties have been involved again for another year.”
If you want to find out more or are interested in taking part in the 2025 Festival, please email HLSEngagement@liverpool.ac.uk